Homonymous
by HoshisamaValmor
Summary: Two people with the same interest in death and continuation - similar minds, different interpretations and different methods leading to very different results.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: This is the combination of a fic idea I have for about 6 months now, and a sudden idea that sprouted in relation to my other fic and that I immediately saw I couldn't fit there. So instead of making 2 fics, I made one.

If by some reason you're familiar with my fic "Reasons to smile" and my tendency to have multiple fics allign in the same 'headcanon canonverse', this is different! This story takes place in canonverse, but it's fully unrelated to the headcanon I follow on my other fic.

also, I've never seen the shinigami ova so I don't really know if there's much 'offiicial' info on their society but I've been hanging around enterprise/company canteens too much lately and I could only picture this scenario lol.

 **warnings:** some mentions of death and suicide dealt with lightheartedness between Shinigami.

 **Disclaimer:** obviously don't own Kuroshitsuji.

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One of the joys of being alive after dying was to learn new interesting things. Ordinary soul retrieval work hardly satisfied him; Othello had definitely found his true calling in the forensics department. All the knowledge and discoveries! The investigation of transcendental mysteries his poor human self could never have solved, no matter how hard he could have tried - just take the simplest mystery of them all, the very fact that his suicide would lead to a literal sentence of redemption. Who'd have thought?

Starting from that very fact: Wasn't it just so interesting that death brought a continuation to life? This was meant to be a penance, but it was so wonderful. And the cinematic records? Wonderful! Boring after a while, sure, but their investigations did provide crucial intel for the widdest variety of mysteries.

Othello was lucky to have several coworkers who shared his enthusiasm for all matters of discovery. For curiosity sake, however, he was bound to relentlessly seek for different demographics - different insights and opinions - different people. And new people were discoveries on their own, weren't they? With all their interesting knowledges and personalities? Othello categorized most in fashion-groups (another form of compiling knowledge and learning if his initial assumptions based on observation equalled personality):  
\- ecstatic-newcomers;  
\- major-depressed-newcomers;  
\- somber-depressives;  
\- enthusiastic-jollys;  
\- transcendal-fossiles;  
\- evolution-skeptics;  
\- genuine-weirdos;  
Just to name a few.

Whether they liked it or not, they would give Othello what he wanted: their opinions, their experiences, bits of whom they were.

That week, it was the turn of an "evolution-skeptic" - roughly speaking, Othello attributed that initial label to those Grim Reapers that had been Grim Reapers for so long, you could feel the eons of piled up knowledge gathering so much dust it almost made them _gleam._ Some of them, rather than become enthusiastic-jollys (like himself) or genuine-weirdos (well... arguably like himself), were just a blank faced, emotionally disattached and disabled fountains of wisdom. Some often borderlined the somber-depressives, just with an added amount of time-induced indifference. Othello loved to pick their brains and get their takes on the subjects of the week.

His target stood out even amongst the rows of heads of all the sitting coworkers on the long rows of tables, the pleasant clutter of voices and tableware as they ate their lunches in the industrial-sized canteen. Othello had spotted him several times through the years, always kept to himself, always alone; always in black, always with the same hairdo ( _definitely_ not one for evolving, apparently). Othello doubted he had ever heard his voice before. He had a regal aura to him; was it some remnant of his human life persona, or something acquired from aeons as a Grim Reaper? Was he really as depressive as he appeared to be?

Questions, questions.

"Othello...! Where are you going?" one of his forensics' coworkers still tried to call him in vain. Othello not only pretended not to hear, he was already gliding away far enough to actually be believable he hadn't heard her voice, leaving his group and their table to another one further ahead; the long table had several scattered empty seats, like holes on a colorful fabric, but Othello's aim was the very end of the table, where the fabric had a very wide gap of empty seats surrounding a lonely black and white figure.

"Mind if I join you?" Othello asked, smiling widely and warmly and throwing himself to the empty chair before the coworker could even have time to lift his eyes; he did, but for around half a second before his gaze returned to his food. "My name is Othello. Pleasure!"

The coworker didn't reply. Othello had done this enough times before to be intimidated or unmotivated by the lack of response.

"I hope I'm not bothering you. I've been brainstorming on a subject and I think you'll be just the right person to give me some helpful insight. Oh, by the way, I never got your name?"

The coworker looked over the thin frames of his glasses. Even his eyelashes were white, or silver, like his cascade of hair. He was quite a handsome chap, and up close that _gleam_ of pilled up knowledge accumulating dust was even more palpable. He must be pretty ancient!

"So! We at the forensics department have been investigating different reactions to deadly weapons. What factors allow different endurances on different people? In the cinematic records of the souls you have retrieved, surely you have encountered more than one instance where one person survived the same exact injury that in turn killed another person? What do you personally gather from this? What caused one death, but didn't cause another? Or rather, why?"

Othello took a spoonful of curry and stuffed it to his mouth, waiting patiently. The coworker didn't even move his fork from the same place it had been left on since the moment Othello had appeared. Othello kept chewing, picking up the pace as the seconds dragged and the coworker didn't give him any sort of acknowledgement - he had turned his eyes away again. Was he perhaps a foreign Grim Reaper? It hadn't occured to him before, but even if that was the case, the fellow would have learned English by now, certainly.

"Perhaps my wording was not the best one. This subject is fascinating because it ties with the bounds of cinematic records and the soul files and the fated lifespans of human beings! Otherwise, why wouldn't an electrical voltage of a lightning strike obliterate the heart of one person, and do so with another? It was expected to be as deadly to both. This happens with sickness as well, but I haven't yet ventured that field, my coworker is researching on that one. Even if the variables of chance come into the equation together with the factors of fate, it's fascinating! Look at our example! What method did you use to take your life?"

Half expecting the silence, Othello fueled himself with a renewed spoonful, talking with his mouth still half full. "Me, I failed the first time! And I was quite meticulous on the dosages, but on my case it didn't work. Probably it was one that worked with you. So, why hasn't my first method worked when it worked for so many others? Why was my file not ended in that first manner? This extends to regular deaths. Have you ever noticed some peculiarities that jump to mind? Maybe it can help me form a pattern for us to research!"

He could at least shoo him off. But no. Othello was being effectively ignored by the coworker. Othello's lips formed a bit of a pout, he wasn't going to deny it.

"Dear me..." he sighed, perhaps not the most polite of gestures but a quite genuine reaction. His coworker might be pleasing to the eye and look wise, but he also looked like a brick of ice had hit his face twice that much. "You should easen up more. There's so much one can learn now! I'm positively happy with my life now! How can you not find it fascinating that we have continued living and transcended to this status? All the possibilities we are offered! Death would be utterly boring option over our continuation. Our investigations at the forensics department may look ludicrous and geeky to most of you soul collectors, but it's very interesting."

"A continuation, huh?"

Othello's ears perked up like a cat.

"One worth having, right?" he promptly agreed, picking on the coworker's reply and holding on to it; he was making progress! His monologue was almost a dialogue now. "Right? I was so boring before, so uninterested and frustrated with everything. Look at me now! That's a subject I wouldn't mind discussing with you either if you want to!"

"Most lists don't change."

"Excuse me?"

The coworker was readjusting the tableware on the plate, not looking at him. "The cause of death is mostly unmutable. A person who survived "drowning" doesn't have that cause crossed and replaced with "multiple organ failure blood loss". It's irrelevant why one method is deadly to some, and others manage to survive it only to later perish of some other means, which in turn is unsuccessful to another. Eventually, one cause will still end them."

"Oh, but it's still worth researching. And it _is_ possible that some files have changes in them, isn't it? Some factors can-"

"They still die."

"Death is inevitable. The means to it, however-"

"Why?"

Othello blinked, confused. This had moved into an actual dialogue too fast for him to apparently process it correctly.

"No matter how much you research and evolve, search for all variables in the causes of death, your findings are still halted by the same constant."

"Well, equations need constants," Othello reminded him.

"Death is meant to be final. To end, to stop learning and evolving. Research and progress serve little purpose when you have such an imposing and old-fashioned rule."

"Old fashioned rule? That's a funny way to describe death."

"Why doesn't it evolve and allow change? Why is it inevitable, if we are here?"

"It's like I said. We got a continuation."

"What if we gave others a continuation too? Don't they deserve to have a happy continuation, like you say you have now?"

"That's not my area, but I do know that's forbidden. If the human is meant to die at that moment, then they die. Otherwise, it would be tampering with human lives."

He shrugged softly. "But ours were tampered with, were they not?"

Othello wavered however slightly. "Oh. That is a nice question."

"It is, isn't it." The coworker started to stand up, picking his tray with him. He had barely touched his food, if at all.

The fellow Grim Reaper left Othello alone at the end of the table. His gaze travelled from the black robes to the empty space left at the table, eyes unfocused on it but focused on the words.

"Hm. Interesting."

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to be continued

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Author's Notes: This is such a simple idea that I doubt it'll turn out good. I think this will have 2 chapters? 3 tops. I guess I started playing into this small little headcanon a bit too much - but this will be quite short! And the character tag is not just clickbait - this story takes place in 1839. Claudia is 9 and will appear.

Thanks for reading, comments and corrections of grammar/typos are appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

"So, how is the research going?"

"Oh?" Othello peeked his head from behind the piles of casefiles and lists, pushing his specs up his nose again to give focus to his forensics department coworker. "Oh, I've had a conversation that provided quite a bit of interesting points of view!"

"Really? That's good," Ophelia said, casually looking to the bit of chaos thrown over Othello's worktable. "Who did you talk to?"

"That fellow with the long silver hair, with the ponytail and the look of utter demolishing boredom."

"Oh! The one at the canteen," she recognized, smiling from the added description and immediately reddening on the cheeks. "You know, you really shouldn't be so impolite. You can't approach seniors so randomly like that, or anyone for that matter."

"What did I do? I just asked questions. He asked me a lot more in return!"

"Really?" Her surprise was understandable. "I don't think I've ever heard him speak. N-Not that I have approached him or really t-tried to, you know..."

Othello smiled for the adorableness of his coworker acting like a teenager and didn't force her to further embarrassment.

"Anyway, that's why I've been diving on these," he raised the current soul list he was surveying. "I'm certain I've seen it before, and these old files were relatively easy to gain access to, and it's a lot of data."

"What are you looking for? Do you want help?"

"Sure! I'm looking for altered causes of death."

Ophelia nodded as she picked on the list from the unsurveyed pile and started flipping through the files. "But weren't you researching for different causes of death and the sources of human endurance and resistance?"

"Yes, but this topic is related to that. What if someone people resisted deadly incidents that were _meant_ to kill them? But somehow, they survived and their initial cause of death was replaced by another?"

"There won't be many of those..."

Othello looked up at her; he was half expecting her to be surprised with his hypothesis.

"Have you already encountered such cases in your ailments investigation? Have you identified a common factor or a pattern?" he asked, noticing how she was flushing red again.

"Huh, well, no. Yes. Uh, what I mean is... yes, I have come across two such files before, with altered causes of death. But no, there was not a pattern. A common factor, yes, but not necessarily a pattern... In both cases, they had been tampered with."

The word that had no particular effect on him before now shot a spark through him.

"Tampered? How so?"

"Well, both dealt with Grim Reapers' tampering on the causes of death. The deaths weren't ailments, they were some accident or attack, and so they delayed it. I don't know the details. I imagine they were severily punished for that."

Othello sucked on his tooth, ruminating on thoughts. Techinically speaking, Grim Reapers could give the chance for human lives to continue over their predetermined end for the benefit of the world; but when had that happened? Never, that he had ever heard of. So, all the times it did happened (not many), it had been taboo and against the rules; even he knew that.

But it was quite interesting. Death was inevitable; why had those fellow Grim Reapers bothered to try to delay the inevitable? Why bother tampering with files, and how could they actually do that?

When successful, those human beings would have an increased time to interact with others around them, afecting them. It had the potential of creating a chain of events that altered _other_ humans's lifespans indirectly! It definitely sounded like a theory worthy of pursuit and investigation.

...even if that led to the assumption, right from the start, that there would be a lot more altered files. A rippling effect would have affected many people. Out of 13563 old files he had already surveyed, he hadn't found a single such case. His coworker had come across 2 cases previously on her investigation, out of a sample of what? 20 thousand?

Regardless, it was a topic worth investigating. Tampering and consequences...

Consequences. _Continuation._

"Do you think we could see our own files?"

"What? Huh, I don't know. I never even thought about it before."

Neither had he. What would his file show? _'Suicide by overdose of opiates'_ crossed as cause of death and replaced by _'suicide by hanging'_? Which one was his originally intended death?

...what if they had altered their own records by chosing to kill themselves?

Oooooh, he would have enough questions to entertain himself for ages!

But immediate satisfaction was always needed. The fellow, the silver-haired coworker; he had mentioned these subjects with such a security, a certainity of opinion that could only be contagious for a knowledge-junkie as Othello. He could share some more of his insights in exchange for Othello's renewed questions.

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The Management Department wasn't helpful in the slightest. Maybe he really was impolite and nosy by going and asking about a coworker's whereabouts and assigned missions ("I don't know his name, though! It's that fellow with the silver hair, do you know?" Othello asked a very unfriendly, transcendal-fossile Grim Reaper); but what he certainly was, it was determined. He had to speak with that fellow! He didn't even his name yet.

"Othello!"

Othello was gliding through the corridor, lost in musings of action courses, when the sound made him halt and turn on his heels. Ophelia was sprinting after him, pausing for a moment to catch her breath before hopping back up.

"There's a file! A changed cause of death!"

"Great! I knew it would be helpful to bring those old casefiles."

"No, no! I mean, a changed cause of death _now!_ "

Othello blinked and hopped in sync with her. "Really? But how? What does it say? How did you know?"

"I have a friend at the Management Department! They were commenting on the case, precisely because it's such a rarity!"

"But what changed it?"

"I don't know that..." Her face frowned and brightened up again in the space of a second. "But can you guess who was assigned for the soul retrieval job?"

It took Othello another second to narrow it down based on the comment and expression.

"What a coincidence, huh?"

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He hadn't been into the human world for a while. It was strange to return, and rather nostalgic. Night time had fallen and London still had that delightful eerieness, unsettlement and decadence that infactuated him as a young boy and eventually killed him as a young man. There were new people waltzing and dragging themselves around, all busy with their lives, some lone souls prone to be attacked by burglars, buglars looking for their preys, prostitutes and pimps and shady lords providing and searching for their entertainments, homeless beggars asking alms to noblemen servants hurrying on their way back to safe manors.

London was the niche of human nature. Ah, good old times.

But enough of that. He had much better times now, ready to be improved ten times more.

Othello trailed after the coworker, following the only lead he had; one odd assigned case amongst a whole list of several souls meant to be retrieved that night. The chances of catching up with the coworker weren't stellar, but he wasn't about to give up!

He tried to follow street plates like he used to do when he was human, but a part of him was remotely aware he had a much more reliable compass that guided his feet like a teacher in a field trip; perhaps Death could smell death.

He turned several corners, leaving behind the busier streets and getting engulfed into a typical londoner foggy night. Eventually, when the number of souls he could feel in the surroundings started to get considerably easy to detect individually, he slowed his pace, looking around. A rustled movement of clothes attracted his attention and Othello turned, face brightened up to greet the expected coworker.

His line of vision didn't catch anything at first. The movement came from much below; Othello looked down. Instead of an adult man, there was a boy. Fair faced, hair of an interesting colour cut short (no, the hair was just tied up), perhaps not over ten years old. Tattered clothes that somehow looked a bit off in his rather pretty and healthy expression, almost girly. Cute little human.

...staring at him in surprise.

Othello's instinctive reaction was to look behind him to see whom might be there - whom the kid might actually be looking at. There was a grimmy corner wall and an empty street half-eaten by fog. He turned back ahead to the boy's big blue eyes.

"You are like him."

Well, so much for having any doubts.

"Excuse me?" Othello still pointed to his chest. "You..." _Yes, dummy, he's talking to you._

"You won't take me," the lad continued, unfased by Othello's bewilderment. "We've already promised. You will not outpace him."

"Huh?"

The lad's initial surprise was quickly turning into a rather unimpressed look. "Well, not all of you Grim Reapers are too smart now are you?"

Wait, what?

 _What?!_

Which part of that statement was meant to cause him more shock and offence?  
 _Equal parts each, most likely.  
_ Who was this human kid? How could he see Othello?  
How could he know what he was and just by looking?  
How did he even know about Grim Reapers to begin with?

Too many questions suddenly pressing and overlapping what was initially just meant to be a fun curious little field trip. Too many perhaps, hindering his processing of everything else.

The world suddenly flew around him. Out of nowhere, he simply lost contact with the ground. His feet kicked the air for roughly a second before grounding and weight returned by painful impact, the back of his head banged against the stone wall and the air knocked out of his lungs. In stunned confusion, Othello's hand clasped aimless and uselessly to find support on the only thing keeping him up straight; whomever had attacked him. A white hand with long black fingernails wrapped in tight black from the wrist up was clenched on the front of his lab coat and pinned him against the wall. His lungs were still protesting for air and yet he still managed to gasp before looking up, not so much as startled as he was frightened.

Not least of all for the fact his fellow coworker was holding a menacing looking Death Scythe about the same length as an adult man.

"Cedric, wait." The voice and name sounded odd until he managed to process the source. "Won't you get in trouble if you harm him?"

"I'm not intending to harm him," his coworker reassured; funny, Othello had never heard a calm and low reassurance sounding so much like a threat. "What are you doing here?"

He tried to open his mouth, not really knowing what he was going to say. The little lad was still there, tiny behind the coworker Cedric (nice name. _Because that's the most important thing to take out of this, right?!_ )

Right. _Focus._ Othello was a scientist and reasonably smart on his own right. He should be able to immediately understand the obvious in front of him, but being thrown head first into a wall and calmly threatened by someone holding a Death Scythe that was _literally_ _a scythe_ _that could rip him in half_ _like a sheet of paper_ might have affected his response a tiny bit.

"You- you can't really do this, can you?" He was giggling for some ludicrous reason.

The coworker wasn't really following on his smiley cue. Or reacting to his bubbling understandable panic. He was just the same expressionless evolution-skeptic-somber-depressive folk from before. Waiting.

He was supposed to answer him. What was Othello doing here?

"What are _you_ doing here?" he echoed instead against all judgement. "You... you can't do this. I mean, _this._ " His eyes moved to the human, who was all but satisfied with the treatment. "We can't interact with humans. How can he even see us when we don't want to be seen?"

" _'He'_?" the boy repeated, scoffing.

"Are you sure this is wise? I mean... I don't know much, but-"

"You do know quite a bit, don't you?" Cedric interrupted. "What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to talk to you again!" Othello answered. Even to him, it now sounded so silly and unrealistic he couldn't blame Cedric for not taking it. "You brought up so many interesting questions, I've been investigating and I wanted to ask you about them again. Altered causes of death! And when I heard there was a current case, it's so rare, I just wanted to...

The file. Ophelia hadn't given him details she didn't know, but the undeniable fact was that, by some reason, someone's cause of death had changed by an unknown reason. An investigation would be expected, but most likely, regardless of the results, the fact was that particular human being was no longer scheduled to have their soul retrieved today. Whatever reasons or perpetrators behind the change, it was virtually possible they could remain unsuspected this time.

And a change of cause of death wasn't the only alteration on the file. Whatever the new and inevitable cause now was, it was delayed.

It wasn't such a difficult equation. Why would a Grim Reaper, working on soul retrieval shift, happen to have a rare and mysterious case of file alteration, and just coincidencially be near a human being who not only could _see_ them, as they were also clearly no strangers?

"You're..."

"What am I doing?" he asked Othello, just as softly and as dangerously.

Othello looked to the human. A kid; not even ten years old indeed. "You're tampering with his life."

"Am I now? What makes you say that, little Grim Reaper?"

"You..." Othello swallowed, trying to clear his suddenly hideously dry throat. The answer was staggered not only by stress but also from his mind working furiously. "You've done something. You've changed... something that would be deadly today..." But what? If the kid was meant to die from illness, what could he do about it? Make up an antidote? Unlikely. But if there was to be an accident, it could be prevented. Rippling effect. "Someone. You killed someone that wasn't meant to die, and now they can't affect others anymore. Therefore, at least one death was delayed."

That wasn't tampering one life, but several. Not one taboo, but several.

"You really are a curious little one, aren't you?"

Othello was smart, pretty damn inteligent - and he lacked common sense sometimes for that reason. Cedric wasn't really questioning him out of curious chattering, he was adding motives to rip him in half and paint the walls a pretty red.

"Cedric, this _will_ get you in trouble." The kid clearly caught up to it faster than Othello.

"Go home now," he spoke to the human lad.

"No."

"Please, Claudia."

"Oh! Sorry!" Othello said instantenously. The lad - lass! That's why he looked so pretty as a girl - looked at him suspiciously. "That is a very good disguise! But, sir... Cedric? May I ask you another question?"

He did smile then; the faintest curve on his lips. His grip clenched on the bony snatch of the scythe.

"You may."

"Why are you bothering?"

Cedric blinked. That seemed to cause some reaction. A dangerous one. His eyes fixed Othello's over the frame of his glasses, some strange shadow darkening them and enlightening the phosphorescence. At last, Othello became finally aware of the seconds of the continuation of life he had left. It was over. That boring, definitive THE END, so much worst than his happy continuation; everything was going to end and there wouldn't be anything else left for him.

No.

Cedric released the grip on his lab coat and his hand flew backwards towards the scythe.

"No!"

"I see!" he shouted, muffling the human girl's voice and her rushing steps. "I see what you mean!"

Probably due to the confusion of such choice for final words, Cedric halted his strike. A second passed. Othello let out air he didn't realized he was holding, gaze jumping from the human Claudia to Cedric.

"I see," he repeated, those precious more seconds. "Forgive me for what I said, now and that time when I made those questions. I see what you mean."

"And what is that?"

"Continuation. When you said _'our lives were tampered with'_..." Simple words that had left an uncomfortable itch on the back of his mind. "You mean us, who wanted to die, were forced to live. And now that someone who deserved to live is forced to die... you don't want it. You don't want THE END to happen, because there's nothing else. It's just over. And that's not fair."

Cedric's brow didn't easen to a safe expression, but Othello continued: "But you know, eventually, it won't be able to be delayed anymore. Eventually, she has to die."

Claudia had stepped next to Cedric by then. Othello's lack of subtlety didn't seem to startle her at all, and instead she moved her hand to Cedric's arm. The coworker looked down to her.

"Leave him. He says he understands."

"Would you really trust mere words, Claudia?"

"Hardly. But in this case, you can verify it for yourself. You'll only give you more trouble if you kill him now."

"It will give trouble if I don't."

"Then do it where I can't see it. Decide whether he means his words or not."

Othello witnessed the exchange with an unique type of morbid fascination, nailed to the same spot even though he was already unrestrained for minutes now. Who were those two? How had they crossed paths, why did that child sound so regal and wise and burdened with a darkness unfit her age? She was the one effectively holding the scythe over him now.

Cedric turned his eyes back at Othello.

"What is your name, little Grim Reaper?"

He swallowed. "Othello."

Cedric's dangerous smile was gone from his face, now back to the mask he had been wearing for so long.

"What happens after the end, Othello?"

"I don't know."

"Aren't you curious?"

"I... I don't know."

Cedric shrugged. "I am."

.

to be continued

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 **Author's Note:** This fic had 2 reasons to be made: writing Othello and Undertaker interacting in their Shinigami days, and having Othello meet Claudia in order to follow the (likely) assumption that this happened in the canon. Othello hasn't been in the human world for 50 years, so obviously I had to place this at that time.

This is to say, I'm also clearly following the Cedric = Undertaker theory and at this moment in time Claudia is 9 years old. My intention isn't to write Undertaker as a creep. I have an entire fic dedicated to explore a non-romantic version of Undertaker and Claudia's relationship, and there I have a reader who made some interesting comments on how, following that specific non-romantic approach, it would still make sense and feel plausible that they had developped 'unrequited' feelings for each other.

TL;DR: I'm not writing Undertaker as being in love with a 9 year old kid, he feels a sense of fierce and utter protection of Claudia because in my headcanon, Undertaker had a daughter that died while he was human. Understandably, the eventual evolution of this feeling is not something he neither planned or expected, and certainly it wasn't without doubts and concerns, but in this particular headcanon, the progress of the years would develop this into romantic feelings. It's no such thing now.

Written in a single (long) go. I'll likely regret it in about a week's time, but until then, here we are. I'm already regretting it it's 2:50 am. Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

Othello sighed in frustration and defeat. The pencil bumped loudly against the paper sheets on his desk.

Thinking back on this had turned into a sort of hobby through the years. It had been quite a few now since that night, when his curiosity had led him to follow Cedric and find his secret.

He tapped his finger on the table, looking down to the paper, where the same result of his useless hobby was displayed yet again. No. It was useless. He couldn't synthesise life and death as mere numerical equations. Too many variables and just one final constant.

Even if he did follow on any equation, the result would still be the same and he knew it. No matter how many events the person survived, no matter how many times death was cheated or delayed, no matter how long and colouful the cinematic record might become, it would still reach the end. All variables lead inevitably to one constant.

So what happens after the end?

Grim Reapers had had a continuation. Following Cedric's theory and reasoning, their lives were tampered with because they chose to die and were forced to live; so he would grant life to one who didn't deserve to die. But it was useless. Inevitably, death would still happen. Regardless or not records were tampered with - regardless of the possibility that _they_ had altered their _own_ records while humans who chose to cut their lives short (a very interesting hypothesis) - the result was the same: their lives had ended. Even Cedric would have to understand that.

Any alteration Cedric would strive to achieve, any arguments he may have to justify his tampering with lives, were all based on the fact he had _died and continued._

Eventually, Cedric would have to follow to the next step of the little human's life equation.

end∎ → ?  
What happens after the end?

Cedric would eventually realize his experimentation with the human's life would be useless and move for the aftermath. Which means, he would have to stop his efforts to extend her life and wait for her to die. And then what?

Would he have the human become a Grim Reaper as well? Why go through all the trouble and break taboos in search for a known possibility?

No. That didn't make sense. Othello and Cedric might have very different methods to approach equations, but they shared curiosity. If Othello were in his place, he would never waste time persuing an alternative he already knew beforehand. Let alone persue it if that meant he was breaking all sorts of rules and taboos. He would want to find something else. An alternative for life cheating death; an alternative for continuation after end that didn't mean suicide.

So, they got to their intelectual crossways:  
Othello wouldn't do any such experiment;  
Cedric was obviously engaged in it;  
and Othello couldn't perceive a way Cedric could influence the aftermath after death.

What other result could come from a dead body without a soul?

Othello sighed heavily. As interesting and intringuing as the subject might have seemed to be, it was futile and too nervewrecking. Cedric was breaking rules _deliberately_ and _continuously_. Sure, thanks to him Othello experienced firsthand the gaunting fear of seeing his death (second death) approaching; the _unfairness_ of having all his fun life end so permanently, and thanks to him Othello understood that Cedric wanted to stop that unfairness from befalling the human.

But why bother? Why that human? Why _any_ human, really? They would _die_.

Othello sighed heavily. This past few years hadn't helped him to understand Cedric's mental process. And the coworker didn't even process equations mathematically or scientifically! No, he was just doing it all through means Othello would never elect or fully understand.

Non-logical.

Emotional.

.

And emotions have worse consequences than mathematics.

.

Othello couldn't say he was surprised when the news reached him. The comments didn't include the crime committed, but Othello didn't exactly need specifics. Poor Ophelia's daunt expression was pitiable. Her prolonged teenage infatuation had become as tragic as her name.

Even though he wasn't surprised, he still felt a cold shiver run through his body, a sense of hollowness. Perhaps it was a fear brought by proxy. He had known of the infractions. He had known there was a coworker breaking not just rules, but a _taboo_. And he had remained silent for years. He had even tried to understand the coworker's motivations and methods.

Technically, he was just as guilty.

As no one had summoned him for a hearing or came to thrust him to a cell, Othello was fairly certain his indiscretions and (arguably) second-hand transgressions were safely overlooked.

Still, the news were a cold, punching reminder of consequences of unrestrained curiosity.

.

Othello _was_ curious. He had always been.

These events would not stanch his curiosity. They would teach him consequences, and therefore, he would actually improve his knowledge and experience.

Othello wanted to see Cedric. He wanted to see the fellow coworker. Not due to some sadistic superiority; he didn't feel superior to Cedric in the slightest, even if when it came to technicals, both had commit crimes of different degrees and only one was getting punished for them. It was not even due to fear, some sick desire to see what might have happened to _him_ in some other world where he engaged Cedric's courses of action.

He just wanted to know what someone who tried so hard was feeling now that it was all but lost.

Othello couldn't easily justify entering the cell out of the blue. Then it occured to him: the time when he followed Cedric in the human world, the very night he found out all of this. He could use that as an excuse to visit the cell, in the guise of 'interrogating' the 'blasphemous Grim Reaper' on that particular incident, seeing as Othello had already officially been involved with previously.

He had never stepped to these facilities. The decacence of it was unnervingly reminescent of that delightful London feeling, even if Othello couldn't point his finger at how that was. Perhaps it was the light, hazed lamps like on a dim alleyway. The deathly chillness of the air, like those eerie nights in London's streets. The foreboding feeling of tragedy. Perhaps it was something else.

The familiar Death Scythe heavily chained to a wall already painted this with scarying new colours.

The Grim Reaper opened the door for him. Othello dangled on his feet, sucking his tooth, a thin layer of sweat threatening to expose his repressed guilt. It didn't soften when the door was shut behind him.

It was surely the first (and likely last) time he saw the coworker with his hair down. A vain and rather silly first assessment, but he had seen Cedric lost in crowds or sitting alone for so many years always wearing his hair tied up, looking so regal and wise, like he was a world apart in his own knowledge or grief or depression; it was not only strange, but frankly unsettling to see him differently. The silver hair was messy, falling disheveled and spilled over himself and the cell's darkened floor. Somehow, the hair was what and enhanced the rest so much.

Curiosity was dangerous.

"Hello, Othello."

A cold shiver made him visually shudder. Othello stopped midstep and chose against approaching further.

He was bleeding. His face, his arms, his chest - perhaps Othello had been wrong. More than his beloved London's decadence, this was reminescent of medieval dungeon torture. The wounds were deep, their depth masked and enhanced in turns by the flickering lighting. The blood gleamed bright red at times, marbling his sickening pale skin in frightening patterns. He was scantily dressed, remains of his trademark black robes exposing his entire torso, strips of skin of his legs and his feet. His glasses were nowhere to be seen. The blood seemed fresh, as if the Death Scythes that had teared open his skin in such an unecessary viciousness had just been used minutes before Othello had entered.

"Cedric," he replied. The word hurt his throat, suddenly too dry for comfort. He tried to think what he should say next. He couldn't think of anything.

As if the sight wasn't unsettlingly and frightening on its own, the expression on Cedric's face was dark, streaked by just a trace of the pain he must be feeling, thick lines of blood dripping from a horrible cut that crossed his entire face; and it all made his eyes gleam in a way that could only be described as blood chilling.

Othello was shivering again.

"I..." he tried to start. Cedric moved slowly, moving his head back and resting it against the wall, exposing another wound carved deep around his throat. His neck too?

What was the purpose of this? Was this a way to kill a Grim Reaper? Was that their purpose, had this been their judgement? It couldn't be. If he was to be sentenced to death, they would simply apply a deadly strike rather than make this extensive damage for no sort of purpose. The wounds _were_ serious, his throat was slashed open for goodness sake, but it only seemed like punishment, slow and delayed wounds to prolong the inevitable.

...like he had done with his tampering with the human life. Delayed death. Could the higher ups really have such a sickening poetical twist in their sentence?

Othello's stomach turned.

"I... I didn't..." What? He didn't what? He didn't say anything; he hadn't snitched Cedric to anyone. He didn't know this would be the consequence; he hadn't read about punishments Grim Reapers received. He didn't even know if they were documented anywhere.

"I know."

"Then, what..."

"You're not the only curious person here, it would seem."

That was fairly obvious, of course. But Othello's brain wasn't, once again, on its top functionality.

"The human...?" he tried. Othello swallowed hard next. Cedric's eyes flickered too dangerously. "Is she...?"

The question was left hanging in the icy air. Othello swallowed again, not daring to venture further on it.

"They..."

"I tried to play with cinematic records."

"What?" Othello asked, confused.

"We haven't talked much for the past years. Weren't you the one who first came to ask me your curious questions?"

Othello jumped at the words, looking back startled. _Shit, shit,_ he shouldn't have come, Cedric couldn't be the one to snitch him!

"Don't worry," he said lowly, as if he knew exactly what Othello was thinking. "Our nice coworker outside can't hear us."

Othello wasn't fully tranquilized by that.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked regardless. "You played with cinematic records?"

"It means I tried to continue. What happens after the end?" Cedric asked. Were they in a different place, they might be finally exchanging a conversation between equals like Othello had always strived. He had made a mental note on that very question - Cedric would have needed to investigate further than life, he would have to move to the aftermath of it. "The cinematic records could have that answer."

"Why would you tamper with cinematic records too?"

Cedric shrugged. Even though his voice was level and his face was mostly blank, the sharp pain forced a quick frown over his features.

"The record is the human's life. How else can I extend it if I don't alter it directly?"

Othello's eyes widened. Cedric really was something else; Othello hadn't seen any possibility for influence after the body's death. His relentlessness in finding answers were praiseworthy to say the least.

"I broke the rules," Cedric continued, attracting Othello's attention again. "I broke the rules while I was alive, and I was punished for it. I was punished because I didn't have the right to want to save my family, I didn't have the right to free myself from my suffering. It was a crime to take my life. In the punishment for my crime, I committed another. I committed many more. Because once again, I didn't have the right to save someone who didn't deserve to die. It's funny when you think about it... It's quite funny. We are being punished for trying to act to protect others. It's funny... I guess I'm unredeemable, huh~ How many times more can I be punished, I wonder? I would think it will only propel me to further crimes."

And he closed his eyes and chuckled.

It was a bit ironic, truth be told. But Othello couldn't find the slightlest bit of it to make him laugh. Not with the fear that was creeping too alarmingly in his mind.

"Punishment doesn't seem to do me much good, now does it?"

Every fiber of Othello's body was telling him to move back, to get out, but he was glued to the spot. Cedric lowered his head, the smile still on his lips. He opened his eyes and looked straight into his.

"I think you should go now, Othello."

He didn't need to be told twice.

Othello turned around and knocked hurridly on the heavy door. The Grim Reaper opened and he slided out faster than he had ever moved. He threw his weight against the door, closing it shut. The coworker frowned and proceeded to lock the door.

"He is most distasteful, isn't he?"

His throat was too dry to speak and he just moved his head awkwardly.

"There's no further need for questions or investigations on his many crimes," the coworker said. "Crossing one taboo may be enough to be executed on its own, let alone crossing the lot he has. Copulating with humans, for goodness sake..."

Othello turned with a jolt.

"What?"

The coworker seems thoroughly disgusted. "Yes. It's as if he made his personal quest to break every single taboo of the Grim Reaper's society."

"What do you mean?" Had he heard the word right? "What do you mean... he isn't being punished for tampering with human lives?"

"Of course he is. He tampered with it to the point of getting involved with one. The human is pregnant."

What?! Othello turned to the closed door, completely disoriented. What had Cedric done?!

"How could..." _Why_ did he do that? Why... what was Cedric even thinking?

"What will happen to the human?"

"Discussions are underway. I can't possibly know the outcome, but if it were on my hands, they would all be dealt with."

Othello stopped breathing.

"Of course," the coworker continued. "That would be tampering with humans' lives, and that is for the likes of _him_. The prolonged punishment should work as a compensation of the otherwise punishment we can't apply, which would be to kill all of them and erase this blasphemy of the human world and of every record of our society."

"Have you told him that?" Othello asked without thinking.

"I have my small joys in life," the coworked replied with a grin.

He was dead.

Othello needed to get out of here. Blood pumping loud and hard in his ears, he looked for his way out of this place, staring at the Death Scythe chained to the wall. What a stupid place to store a weapon of a condemned.

"You shouldn't keep that Death Scythe here."

"What?" the coworked followed Othello's eyes and scoffed. "Why not? I like it. At least in that costumizing he did have good taste. I may keep it for myself."

.

It wasn't even an hour later when a considerable commotion alerted almost every department, the forensics no exception. Some of his coworkers went to inspect, returning with drained expressions. Without thinking and with an utter sense of hollowness, different and colder than the one he had felt just a few hours prior, Othello stood up from his desk and stepped out of their room, ignoring the voices behind him advising him not to go, others saying to wait for them. He stepped through the halls, guided by that same invisible thread that seemed to have guided him in his last visit to the human world.

The sense of dejá vù was too loud even if the path was now riddled with people, narrowing with the increased number of fellow coworkers crowding them, hushed voices forming a loud unclear clattering.

Othello reached his loving London-reminiscent place and found it painted and dripping in pretty red. Not just one, but what would likely be reassembled as four coworkers, were neatly scattered and displayed through the corridor. Cedric didn't have much talent for painting, but he probably wasn't really trying. Or perhaps he had been trying indeed. Those body parts were rather meticulously and extensively severed. Othello's eyes fell down on a lump on the floor, nearly tripping on it before someone threw a hasteful grip on his arm to stop him. The fellow guard coworker's head was turned upwards, glasses discarted further down the floor. He wouldn't give them much more use now that his eyes were slashed to a bloody dripping mash. His mouth was also considerably bloodied, as if his tongue had nicely severed.

Poetical twist.

.

Othello did learn some things about curiosity.

Attempting to cheat death was not only inevitable, it was stupid. To get so tangled up in your own futility to the point of getting lost in it was worth getting punished. One should never lose sight of the goal of the experiment, never lose sight it was _meant_ to be an experiment. Falling in love nulified an experiment as such.

His discoveries freed himself, not to be wreckless, but to be smarter. He learned how people could be utterly changed due to emotions. Something Othello had never been particularly susceptible to. This provided further proofs on the benefits of not mashing emotions to equations.

Everything was resumed to stupidity. Such level of stupidity should be punished, and and it would be so. Not with cuts to the skin or threats, but with undeniable, inevitable facts.

Cedric was doomed to be punished continuously. Their lives as Grim Reapers were meant to be striving for redemption, and he was only adding more punishment to himself. If he continued the life he thought he could have with the human, actually have a family with her (the notion was so outlandish it even felt wrong to think about it), he would see her die, and see their children die, and see their grandchildren die. And he wouldn't be able to save them, because no alteration to the cinematic records would make them live again. He would keep living forced to face failure.

He deserved punishment. He really was unredeemable.

.

the end

.

* * *

.

 **Author's Note:** Although I said that romantic reference wouldn't be in this fic, I've clearly changed my mind.

I originally intended to write this story in the course of 3 days. I kept up to that goal with the first 2 chapters, but this one got stuck and couldn't like it any way I wrote it. I actually like it a lot now. I wrote it in a single go again, many hours. I wanted to wrap this up now and before the next chapters comes out lol.

Anyway, if you want a visual image, I had Nanfe's beautiful fanart work etched in my mind the second I thought about writing Undertaker in this situation.

nanfe deviantart com /art/Undertaker-731594016

I was listening to Serj Tankian songs while writing, and 'Feed Us' sounded pleasantly and unexpectidly symbolically/artistically fitting for Undertaker.

 **Thank you for reading,** feedback and corrections are not only incentivated but welcomed.


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